


A Little Bit More

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 07:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1336432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>these are two (very) short drabbles in which louis struggles with eating disorders. </p><p>TW: this explicitly and graphically discusses eating disorders. please take caution with reading this, especially if you have endured an eating disorder at any point in your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit More

It has become really easy to ignore the ache. It’s even easier to ignore the buzz and blur in his head, the stress and pain in his muscles. It has always been easy to ignore the throbbing in his stomach when he runs his hands over his tummy, his hips, his thighs. A lot of Louis’ time is spent standing in front of his mirror, pulling and stretching and pinching his body and contorting it into the shape he desires. He molds his inner thighs like clay, presses his ankles together and locks his knees to examine the space between his legs.

It’s easy to avoid food now that Louis is at university. His flatmates’ schedules rarely line-up with his, so it’s rare that one of them will be around long enough to comment on the fact that he hasn’t eaten all weekend. When they do notice, though, Louis will eat. Louis will eat whatever it is that’s nearby for a few minutes until the boys find something else to distract them, then he’ll go lock himself in the bathroom. It’s a bit of a process from there.

First, Louis turns on all of the lights. He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and analyzes his face. Usually by this point he’s leaning on his elbows, so close to the mirror that his breath fogs it. He picks and pulls at the imperfections, the blemishes, the dry skin, the patchiness of his attempt at a beard. He stares and examines until it doesn’t feel like he’s looking at himself anymore. Then Louis turns on the faucet and lets it run. He’ll pass his hands through the stream every once in a while, just to ease that nagging thought in the back of his mind that his flatmates may have their ears pressed to the door.

Then, Louis slowly kneels on the floor in front of the toilet. He avoids looking down and seeing his thighs and calves pressing against each other. The strange combination of urine and bleach stings his nose and nauseates him. He cringes a little and flexes his fingers around the porcelain bowl. Tucking loose strands of hair behind his ears, Louis opens his mouth as wide as he can. Thanks to his nearly non-existent gag reflex, Louis has to hold two fingers uncomfortably deep in his throat for about twenty seconds before anything is close to coming up. The bile rises quickly and burns his throat . His brow furrows and he concentrates on getting it right. He juts his fingers in and out of his mouth two or three times until he’s satisfied with how much of his stomach he’s emptied.

Using his clean hand, Louis flushes the toilet and shakily pulls himself onto his feet. The faucet is still on and Louis clears his throat while he cleans off his hands. He continues his ritual and rinses out his mouth for fifteen seconds under the stream of water, then turns off the faucet and uses mouthwash for thirty seconds. It’s about now that Louis feels absolutely wonderful. He stuck to his routine, and he feels light and fresh and as if he could do anything. He’s still stumbling a little, though, so he takes it easy instead.

It seems like he’s taking it easy a lot lately. Louis thinks he’s been getting weaker physically despite growing stronger mentally, but he tries to focus on the positivity in the emptiness of his stomach rather than the negativity in the stress of his bones. He leaves the bathroom, stands in front of his mirror, and tugs on his skin just a little bit more.

Just a little bit more.

\----------

Louis was alone for half an hour immediately following his release from the facility.

On one hand, he was glad to leave the unbearably floral-print smattered walls, but, on the other hand, he felt uncomfortable sitting by himself in the backseat of this black suburban.

In all honesty, Louis has always been a pretty solitary guy. But spending four months surrounded by people who tended to your every need and cared only for helping you become the best version of yourself was, well, pretty nice. The driver hadn't uttered more than a quiet hello when he helped Louis gather his things from his room, and now they drove in comfortable silence from the English countryside to the apartment complex he shared with his boys in London, the only sound being the gentle and sometimes staccato hum and bump of the tires on the roadway. The sun was midway to the center of the sky and the reflected light from the clouds was bright and warm on his face through the closed car window. He thought about the last time he sat down to play FIFA with the boys without worry of how his thighs looked when he sat down on the couch. He couldn't remember.

As they rounded the last corner before their building, Louis closed his eyes and took a deep breath. With his exhale, Louis envisioned pushing down the weight in his stomach. He'd eaten a small bowl of oatmeal with blueberries this morning but he couldn't stomach much of it due to nerves. It tasted nice, but the density clung to his bones and weighed him down in a way he wasn't sure he'd be able to bear this morning. He felt kind of dizzy.

Louis kept his eyes closed and felt the car bumble over the familiar potholes in the road as he began to calm himself down, running his hands along his torso. It was a technique he learned during his time at the facility; don't just accept your body, embrace it, understand it, become familiar with every inch of it without critically analyzing it. His fingertips trailed from the tattoo at his collarbones down to his hips and past his knees. He felt every patch of dry skin and every dimple of flesh, every curve of smooth skin and every soft hair, he felt the jut of the bones in his wrist and the softness above his hips where he once was jagged and harsh. His elbows rested against his thighs and he pressed his palms together with his fingertips splayed apart. One last deep inhale, one last deep exhale. Louis liked to imagine that his anxieties and stresses were expelled through his fingertips and his toes when he breathed hard enough, and he hoped it would work today. 

His heart fluttered in his chest and his breathing stuttered a little when the right side of the car bounced over the curb and into the small parking lot. He tried not to think of what happened the last time he left this building, his screams over the cries of his family and his boys. He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Inhale. Louis' eyes slowly drifted open once his body rocked forward as the car shifted into park, and he exhaled. His tentative fingers slowly pulled on the door handle, and the excited footsteps running across the gravel told him that the rest of his recovery wouldn't be accomplished alone.

**Author's Note:**

> for me, writing fan fiction is just writing personal short stories using familiar names and faces. i am not perpetuating the idea that louis tomlinson has an eating disorder, nor do i wish to support the romanticization/glamorization of eating disorders. i wrote this for therapeutic reasons and those reasons remain personal.
> 
> however, if you exhibit any of the behaviors written here or believe for reasons otherwise that you may struggle with an eating disorder, please seek help. it is never wrong to ask for help. please go to [this site](http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/find-help-support) to find the form of assistance that is right for you. eating disorders can be fatal and must always be taken seriously.


End file.
